Former Exira Vikette and Audubon County 4H-er leads Cyclones back to NCAA Tourney, is excited about potential professional career
By Drew Herron - AJ Sports Editor / March 19, 2014
AMES – Iowa State will open NCAA Tournament play Saturday against Florida State as the program takes part in March Madness for an eighth straight year.
This season, the team’s best player proved to be Hallie Christofferson, the face of the Cyclones Women’s Basketball team, and the pride of Hamlin, Exira, and all of Audubon County.
Christofferson wraps up her senior season as a unanimous First Team All-Conference Big 12 selection, is a finalist for most of the tier awards in women’s college hoops, and is on everyone’s All-American shortlist.
Eventually and probably, Christofferson will become for a while a professional basketball player. Wherever she ends up, be it the cities of the WNBA or in Europe, it will mark quite a distance to travel for a young woman from Hamlin, Iowa…population 251.
“I would like to take that chance if I’m given the opportunity,” Christofferson says of playing pro ball. “I’ve always thought it was so far out of my reach, I’d never really considered it. But now I’m looking forward to the chance.”
Christofferson leaves Iowa State a more polished player and individual than she came into it, and coach Bill Fennelly certainly has a lot to do with the success she has carved out for herself. But Fennelly will point to Christofferson’s upbringing, growing up on a corn and soybean farm in rural Audubon county (she and her siblings raised pigs) that made for a malleable individual ready to cultivate and grow.
“I think for her, it starts with the values she learned growing up in small-town Iowa,” coach Fennelly says. “Yea, Hallie has a lot of talent, but her work ethic, her individual accountability and sense of responsibility…all the good things that are prevalent in rural Iowa really show up.”
At Exira High School and in Audubon County, Christofferson was a lot of things growing up. She was valedictorian of her class, homecoming queen, an all-academic student who starred in track, volleyball, and of course, basketball.
During her senior year, Christofferson guided the Vikettes to a Class 1A State Championship in the program’s final season before consolidation with Elk Horn-Kimballton. Moreover, she was an active 4H member and sometimes office holder from fourth grade through high school graduation.
Christofferson knows first hand what head, heart, hands, and health mean.
“I think I was President, Vice-President, and some other things at different times,” Christofferson jokes of her Audubon County 4H group. “We had a very small club, so we were able to do a lot.”
Fourth grade was also the same year Christofferson began to play basketball, and the rest is history in the making. The youngest of four children to Tom and Phyl, Hallie was able learn the value of hard work from her older brothers and sister as they went about life on the farm and in the community.
“I was always able to look up to my siblings, and use them as an example,” Christofferson says. “From them, I learned that dedication and hard work will lead you to where you want to be. I just followed their path.”
Eventually, Hallie followed her older sister Britta (who was a thrower for Iowa State’s Track team) to Iowa State, where she was exposed to the College of Design’s exhibitions, and other artists’ work that inspired her to become a Graphic Design Major, exposing a whole new artistic side to the polymath basketball star.
Now, Hallie works with pride on prints and poster series artwork projects that allow her a whole other avenue to be creative.
“In high school, I loved art, and I wanted to stick with something where I can work with my hands and be creative,” she says.
Christofferson doesn’t create the banners or posters with her own likeness for Iowa State Media relations, though there are plenty of those around. And like it or not, she has become the face of the program as well as a role model.
Prior to the season, Fennelly met with Christofferson as to what that might involve with speaking obligations and duties a step above the average player or starter. To see Christofferson mature and take the reigns of a program that heads into another March Madness this weekend, coach Fennelly says she is all that is right with college athletics.
“She’s humble to a fault, she’s quiet,” coach Fennelly says. “To be the star player and literally the face of the team in every way…it’s something she’s comfortable with. She’s short and to the point, but the Iowa State fan base can empathize with her. Every single one of our fans looks at her, this girl from small-town Iowa, and there is this instant connection.”
From Hamlin to…fill in the blank, Christofferson has opened some eyes as to how one might go from here to the rest of the world.
“I hope that (young players) don’t think that just because you come from a small school, that you don’t have the same opportunities as other people,” she says. “Maybe it does open some people’s eyes a little…if she can do it, why can’t I?”
#iowastate #cyclones
No comments:
Post a Comment